‘What version represents the collective experience?’ AI tech like DLSS 5 causes issues when preserving games, curator says
“Is the maker’s intent or the audience’s collective memory being compromised?”
Machine learning and AI tech like DLSS 5 and its predecessors cause issues when preserving and exhibiting games, a museum curator has warned.
Last week Nvidia announced DLSS 5, the next generation of its image enhancement technology, which it claims is “the most significant breakthrough in computer graphics since the debut of real-time ray tracing”.
Response to the tech was mostly negative, with players accusing it of applying an unwanted filter of generative AI visuals over the original graphics.
The tech – and similar upscaling and AI enhancement tech like it – also produces problems for preservation, according to Chloe Appleby, program curator at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney.
In an interview with GadgetGuy, Appleby explained that the addition of AI and machine learning tech to games – and the ability to turn it on or off depending on a player’s hardware specifications or personal taste – would create a headache when trying to decide which version of a game to preserve and exhibit.
“If these new AI technologies become essential for making and playing games, it has the potential to not only add another layer of potential copyright complexity but bring into question what version of a game should be preserved,” she said.
“Do we preserve both DLSS off and on? Is the DLSS 5 version consistent amongst players and if not, what version represents the collective experience?”
Appleby stressed that not only does AI tech risk compromising the original vision of the game’s art team, it also results in games that look different from user to user – a potential issue when exhibiting such games at a museum in the future, where everyone’s memory of how it looked differs depending on what their set-up was.
“Experiences and intent from both the maker and the player changes significantly with this tech which impacts curatorial justifications and interpretations,” she explained.
“In an exhibition context, how do you present this tech with the game? If you must display it, is the maker’s intent or the audience’s collective memory being compromised?”
Elsewhere in the article, Dr Brendan Keogh of Queensland University of Technology said he wasn’t necessarily certain that DLSS 5 would change game development in a major way, “especially considering the huge negative backlash to how terrible it looks”.
“What will be important is for players to be vocal about the fact they want games made by actual human beings, that don’t require burning down whole forests and using huge amounts of water just to render bad shadows,” Keogh said. “A painting isn’t automatically better if it has more colours and a video game isn’t automatically better if it has more pixels.”
Last week Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang deflected widespread criticism of DLSS 5, claiming that detractors of the AI technology are “completely wrong”.
